


Blue.

by rocknrollalien



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Autistic Character, F/F, Lucio is probably the most major character other than the main pairing, More characters will be added as they're introduced, Post-Recall, Redemption, Slow Build, expect most of overwatch to make an appearance though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8382115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocknrollalien/pseuds/rocknrollalien
Summary: After a brush with the security for one of Vishkar's rivals, Satya Vaswani is forced to reckon with uncertainty in her actions. Having come to the conclusion that Vishkar was not as morally upstanding as she once believed, she turns to a freedom fighter who may point her in the direction of doing right. Perhaps soup kitchens aren't in her future, but a certain security chief might be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a massively underappreciated ship, and it has become my favourite in all of the massive hellpool that Overwatch shipping can be. If there are any particular scenes or instances you've always wanted to see from this ship, feel free to comment! I've got an idea for the overarching plotline, but little interactions are something I'm a bit low on at the moment and I'd love input.
> 
> I hope everyone likes this! It's proving to be very fun to write.

Satya knew, somewhere inside of herself, that the glow of her hard light constructs was impractical. The eerie blue shimmer that became bridges and portals and even projectiles gave away her location in the darkest of cities and drew attention even in bright markets. When devoting herself to her studies years earlier, part of her had questioned if there were a way to prevent it. Ultimately, the glimmer of her own creations was simply too beautiful to abandon in the name of practicality.

After all, she’d assured herself, when one is able to shape reality with their fingertips, they ought to be allowed a measure of beauty.

Even still, she found herself regretting her more colorful past choices as she saw several visors glint with the light she provided. As more armored individuals turned toward her, she only saw more of her own blue light. She had not been told that there would be quite this many armed guards at the point, but this thought was secondary as she tried to consider how she would get out of this.

She twirled, planning on stepping lightly through the portal she’d created before any of them could strike her, but a rocket cracked into the side of it and she leapt back in alarm. The blue oval flickered once, and then was lost to her.

If she were a woman prone to cursing, she would have sworn. Instead, she spun around once more and faced her fate. Her fate, as it happened, looked a lot like a woman in blue and gold power armor. The woman did not tilt back her beaked visor (Satya fixated on it--it was not practical, but there was a certain charm to it nonetheless) to reveal her face, but from her position, she could still make out what seemed to be intricate eye makeup (only on one eye, she noticed with dissatisfaction). 

“I am impressed,” Satya said, her tone flat. “None have managed to capture me thus far.”

The woman--a security chief, she could only presume--drew closer, but did not take her hand off her gun. “Here I assumed this was a standard Vishkar procedure. Make an enemy, send a--what are you, a gymnast?--into play, and blow up the building. That’s what they call keeping the peace, I’ve heard.”

The cadence of her accent was familiar to Satya. Egyptian, perhaps? Was Vishkar quite so feared that Hyperborea Incorporated ought to hire an Egyptian security task force? The idea troubled her, but she did not speak. Silence, in such situations, was bolder than a quick retort.

“D’ya think she’s Symmetra?” one of the other armored guards--this one a man. He tilted his head inquisitively, making it easy for Satya to pinpoint his voice. He sounded Egyptian as well. 

Her gold eyes found him, and he took a step back reflexively. A small smile came onto her face, though her eyes remained cold. He was a coward.

“It may be, but we shall treat her as we would any intruder,” the woman who had made an impression upon Satya as the leader of the group said. The man she addressed nodded and straightened up, renewing his grip on his gun. “Be careful, she may be dangerous.”

Satya laughed.

“You think this is funny, Vishkar?” the leader demanded. She gave off the impression that she was narrowing her eyes, though Satya couldn’t be expected to see through the mirrored visor of the Raptora suit.

“If you know who I am, then you know exactly how dangerous I am,” Satya said, and her words were like bared blades. They were a naked threat, but not an outright attack.

“She is Symmetra,” one of the others whispered.

That was certainly the name they had given her during clandestine missions. She had always assumed that using the callsign was a clever way to avoid any of her breaking and entering being directly traced to a Vishkar employee, but part of her had always wondered if this was meant to be a jab at her ongoing search for perfection in symmetry. She had not asked, and likely would never. She did not want to know if she were being mocked.

Her comm crackled in her ear. Communication at this point was a no-go. Apparently the company had taken the precautions necessary to prevent communication with a would-be intruder and her controllers. So, Plan B.

“Are you?” the leader asked. “Symmetra?”

While she spoke, she made a motion with her fingers and the others made a semi-circle around their captive. They didn’t go directly behind her, as she stood on the remains of her teleporter against the wall, but they did their best to circumvent any escape routes.

Satya wasn’t concerned.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she asked, her eyes flashing from behind her visor. 

She wasn’t sure, but it looked like--if just for a moment--the leader of the security team smirked. 

After that, of course, it was an unfortunate blunder of chaos, light, and motion. While the two had been distracting the rest of their team with their banter, she had been slowly charging her photon blaster to unleash hell on the room. She aimed it above the security chief’s head and when it collided with the ceiling, she ran. A barrage of ceiling tiles (no doubt riddled with asbestos--disgusting) rained down upon the leader’s head, stalling her pursuit.

Satya paused in the hallway. She was caught between options. Option A: Take the opportunity her distraction had provided and escape. Report to Sanjay. Face disappointment. Try again later, once security measures had likely improved. Option B: Against all odds, find the files she sought in the first place and escape from there.

The freedom to choose was an unfortunate illusion.

As she sprinted down the hallway, calculations drifted through her head. The Raptora suit was not one she had studied in any depth given that she felt it was unlikely to have relevance in her life, but Vishkar made a point to release materials to its staff about new weapons and armor that may come up during wartime. It was highly mobile, but much of the benefits of its flight system were rendered irrelevant in the closed quarters of the corporate building in the middle of Athens. The rockets were powerful, built with intent to kill, but the wearer of the suit was just as likely to be hurt as the target.

The only reason to hire a guard in Raptora armor was to intimidate.

Or, perhaps, Hyperborea was as stupid in planning its security details as it was with its business propositions. After Rio, it was a fool’s errand to attempt to undercut a Vishkar contract, didn’t everybody know? A tinge of regret attempted to distract her in her mad chase through the halls of the office building, but she compartmentalized it.

She heard a cough. 

With a graceful spin and a sway of her arms, she placed a turret to her side and ran down the wrong hallway. In the brief glance she’d gotten, it seemed that only the leader of the force was directly pursuing her. The blue and gold armor was marred by the white plaster powder coating her head and shoulders. A pity. Satya had liked the armor as it was.

Before she could turn another corner, she heard the turret lock onto the armored woman and the subsequent groan. She allowed herself to smile. The energy drain should make it harder for the woman to give chase. As Satya checked over her shoulder to see how the security chief was doing, the woman looked right at her.

She shivered, and continued her mad run. She placed turrets at opportune locations and created a trail for the woman to follow. If she tracked well, which surely she must, she would be lead to a large window in an office space that had been left unoccupied for six months time while Hyperborea restructured its executives. Symmetra, of course, would already have gathered the relevant documents and fled from an entirely different exit by this time.

She found the safe easily, having committed the floorplan of the structure to memory, and unlocked it in mere moments.

As she flicked through the documents, relief washed over her. The reason Hyperborea had been able to undercut Vishkar was due to some decidedly shady dealings with a gangster and drug dealer in the city providing extra funds. From a hasty perusal, she couldn’t determine exactly what relationship the gangster had with the CEO, but she didn’t need to know. This was exactly what she needed.

Another situation like Calado’s clean company would have killed her.

“You can’t get away so easily.”

Satya’s eyes widened in shock.

The security chief was there, pointing her wrist threateningly at Satya. She was still doused in plaster, but remained as intimidating as she ought to have been with perfectly clean armor. What was visible of her face indicated an expression of pride or victory. The slight upturn of her lips was somewhere between a smirk and a smile. Satya had never taken naturally to reading expressions, but she found herself wishing that she could see the woman’s eyes.

“Do you have a sense of justice?” Satya asked. It was a question that escaped before she could completely formulate it, or where she was going with it. She knew she wanted a distraction, a diversion, anything before the security chief fired a localized rocket into Satya’s chest.

“I...what?” the woman asked, tilting her head.

“This company is rotten,” Satya replied sharply.

“Interesting point of view from a Vishkar lackey,” was the reply. The security chief’s tone mirrored Satya’s.

“You are a smart woman,” Satya stated, turning away from the chief carefully. She began walking toward the window, ready to put up shields at a moment’s notice. “To have tracked me here, despite my trail? Yet you’d gladly work from a gangster’s deep pockets.”

No rocket came.

“Is Vishkar better?”

Satya constructed a light bridge spanning from the window to the next building over.

“I don’t know.” Her own honesty surprised her.

And still, no rocket.

She fled into the night, the documents in hand. She did not risk a glance back at the woman who allowed her escape. She imagined the expression she would wear nonetheless--somewhere between a smirk and a smile.

Long after she’d delivered the documents to Sanjay and the press had ripped Hyperborea apart, she dwelled upon that night.

She laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, and marveled at her own words. _I don’t know._ The smirk. _I don’t know._ The rocket that never came. _I don’t know._

She rolled over and mashed a pillow into her face.

“Why should I care about a random Hypoerborea grunt?” she asked herself aloud. I don’t know her own repeating train of thought answered.

_I don’t know._


	2. Chapter 2

Her mantra changed over time. When she was a girl, her mantra had been nothing but numbers--counting her steps, counting the clouds, murmuring a 1/2/3/4 to herself as she learned to dance. When she was found ( _Saved_ she told herself) by Vishkar, her mantra had become something a little more complex: If everyone performs their function, victory is assured. Victory, function, and order were the focus of her repetitive thoughts.

As an adult, her mantra was one she was proud of: The true enemy of humanity is disorder. It kept her values at the forefront of her mind, and it reassured her when doubts nagged at the back of her head. She recalled so vividly the accusatory gaze of a burned little girl _the true enemy_ in a Brazilian favela _of humanity_ and was forced to reckon with the source of the flames _is disorder_ that had engulfed her.

She tried to soothe herself, blocking out the images of fire and distrustful eyes by repeating these words. _The true enemy is…_

They rang hollow, at last. The practical part of her knew that it was bound to happen, if merely just because she’d used the phrase to comfort herself for so long. It was like a threadbare blanket to her mental state, and would simply need something refreshing.

She mentioned this, offhand, to Sanjay. Sanjay laughed in his baffling way, and suggested something out of the Vishkar playbook: “Do not deviate from the plan and victory will soon be ours.”

“You don’t think that’s too harsh?” she asked carefully.

Sanjay laughed again, and shame coiled in her gut. She did not know what was funny. “Satya, you are a creature of contradiction. I never thought I’d hear you, of all of our agents, call something ‘harsh.’”

In truth, no matter what Sanjay said, a new mantra had wormed its way into her consciousness unbidden. A voice in the back of her head repeated it on a loop during every meeting with her superiors, during every covert operation, during every dream. It was her own voice, which was some small comfort, but the thought set her on edge.

It was not a calming thought. It did nothing to soothe her nightmares or fixations on unhelpful memories.

 _I don’t know_ she told herself, constantly. The memory of her night breaking into the Hyperborea building, facing down with the tall woman in the blue armor, her own hair in the gentle breeze like a flag, the rocket that never came--it played on a loop in her head every time she shut her eyes.

It was true. She didn’t know. She had worked her entire life toward two goals: certainty and beauty. Her life as a child had been chaotic and terrifying. When Vishkar found--saved, she reminded herself--her, they had promised her stability. Her ability to manipulate hard light and her innovations in the field had assured her job position and kept her with a family to uplift her in her pursuit of beauty in all things. She, in turn, aided them in their quest to spread beauty and certainty to every slum in the world.

Why bother with the illusion of freedom when you are offered Utopia?

She recalled a young man from Brazil who had reacted with vitriol when the question was posed at a press conference in Rio. He wore vivid greens and his voice was loud enough to carry through the crowd, ensuring that he snared people’s attention with his every movement and word. From the tip of his dreadlocked head to his prosthetic toes, he demanded an audience. He was beautiful in his own way, though the loss of his legs was to be mourned, and his face was not suited to frowning.

“What do you mean why bother? Why bother with Utopia if you can’t be free enough to enjoy it?” he’d demanded.

At the time, she’d reacted with a barely concealed sneer.

Now she considered his words carefully. She didn’t believe that his ideal of ‘freedom’ was quite as important as he let on, of course. Freedom of choice lead to the freedom to commit crimes against one’s fellows. Freedom lead to confusion. Confusion lead to disorder. Disorder lead to chaos. Chaos lead to an accusatory face staring across at her from a crowd, half her face marred with flames that she had no power to put out, but a hand in lighting.

 _Is Vishkar better?_ a security chief asked gently in her imagination.

Satya Vaswani was many things, but indecisive was not one of them.

In little more than a week’s time, she had taken her things and left Vishkar. She provided no notice and did not return the tools that had been given to her during her employ. She had vowed to seek certainty and beauty, and she had come to the painful conclusion that Vishkar provided neither of those things for the people they ought to be helping.

She paid for a flight to Brazil, and hoped that she would be able to find someone who could help her. She mused that it might be too late for her to undo the evils that Vishkar had done with her own hands as their tools, but, once again: she did not know.

One thing she did know, however, is that this would eat at her until she made it right.

 

XX

A basic internet search proved fruitful. The young man’s name was apparently Lúcio Correia dos Santos. She’d heard it before, if only in passing, due to his involvement with Vishkar. The words  _ thief _ and  _ ruffian _ and  _ entertainer _ crossed her mind all at once, forcing her lip to curl involuntarily. She found videos of his performances, noting the stolen tech used to amplify the sounds, and tried to form an opinion on his music.

Typically, she preferred traditional Indian music. It was easy to dance to, and the rhythms somehow made logical sense to her. She used the music in the materialization of hard light constructs and it had proved a valuable ally to her through all her years. She took little of her childhood with her, but her taste in music was one of those things.

The street rat ( _freedom fighter_ , she reminded herself) had an altogether different form of music. It was intensely electronic, with a familiar rhythm and a so-called “danceable beat.” The videos of his performances were dark but for the glow of various jewelry and lights that spun and flashed and hurt her head, but evidently people quite enjoyed dancing to the beat. There was a short wikipedia page that discussed the alleged curative powers of his music, but she dismissed it as hearsay and moved on.

He was a native of Rio de Janeiro, and had taken personal offense at the redevelopment of the area in the name of a structured and beautiful living space. He had stolen Vishkar technology and used it to rally his allies, becoming a notable thorn in Vishkar’s side in regards to developing the region. Years of training told her that he was ridiculous, a fool to be resisting such positive change in his life, but her new mantra whispered in her ear.

He was well known, well spoken, and had been able to evade Vishkar for nearly two years now. Logically, Lúcio would be a reasonable ally to begin her journey toward redemption with. Somewhere deep inside her brain, however, she knew she had a debt to pay to him. She had had a direct hand in destroying things that were dear to him.

If she wanted to make amends, he was the logical first step.

When she arrived in Rio, she noticed with mixed feelings that the Vishkar structures were still in place. She initially reacted with pride and satisfaction, noting her own touches here and there in the architecture, but guilt and shame twisted through her veins when her golden eyes turned to the people walking through the streets. There were tourists, equipped with fanny packs and maps pointing out the architectural curiosities that Vishkar had planted with intent to increase local revenue in the city, and there were those who lived here. The latter walked either with their eyes downcast or plastic smiles stuck to their faces as they gave directions to white tourists wandering through their city.

She avoided making eye contact with any pedestrians as she walked briskly to her destination. It was a small restaurant that had been built in a previously condemned building since Vishkar moved in. From what she recalled of the reports, it had once been a laundromat. In its place, a charming cake bakery had risen.

> **Addressed To:** Lúcio Correia dos Santos.  
>  **Subject:** A Conversation Regarding Peace and Freedom  
>  **Body:** You may not know me, but I have heard of your work. We met once before. My name is Satya Vaswani, and I have just defected from Vishkar. I do not plan to report you. I do not plan to engage you in any manner of conflict. I request that we meet, for I have much to discuss.

She had written and rewritten the correspondence more than twenty times before she was satisfied. She was still irked with some of her phrasing, but she knew that she only had so much time. He had responded tersely--out of character for him, according to his fans--but assented to a meeting at a location of his choosing.

And so, the cake place. She couldn’t deny that a part of her had expected a shady alley, strewn with garbage or--but no, that wasn’t what was going on here. She took a deep breath, steadying herself _I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know_ before stepping through the threshold and taking a seat by the window. She would have to abandon the prejudice against so-called freedom fighters if her new path were to become a permanent one, no matter how effectively it had been instilled in her.

She folded her hands neatly in her lap and tried not to hold her breath. Nerves didn’t suit her. Anxiety was inefficient, she told herself. She couldn’t get anything done if her brain took it upon itself to scream every possible terrible outcome in her ear. She would not be able to tread this path if her heart hammered quite so loudly in her chest. So she breathed, and breathed again.

“I will follow my path,” she murmured to herself, the sound of her voice comforting her more than she could articulate.

“If you’re tryin’ to tell me something, you’re gonna have to speak up.” The voice was almost friendly, but not quite. Satya couldn’t place if the alternate tone was hostility, but she often had trouble placing tone.

She looked up sharply to see the young man she’d sought. He was wearing a sleeveless hoodie with a frog symbol emblazoned upon the front (along with a word in Portuguese that Satya could not immediately translate) and uncomfortably bright orange basketball shorts. His prosthetic legs ended in curious rollerskates rather than more recognizable human feet, and had a lot more mass than one would expect from a standard disc jockey’s prosthetics. She wondered if he had used Vishkar technology to make them more functional for him, but banished the thought.

“I was not speaking to you,” she said, ice creeping into her voice unbidden.

His eyes narrowed at her, but he took a seat opposite her nonetheless.

“You’re Vishkar,” he said. “Just because I’m here, don’t think that I suddenly think things are butterflies and rainbows between us. I don’t trust you.”

“My name is Satya,” she said, scowling at her own lap rather than meeting his eyes. She knew she told him this in their correspondence, so his refusal to call her by her name could easily be construed as disrespectful. She held herself in check nonetheless. She had done nothing to earn his respect, she reminded herself.

“Yeah, I’m Lúcio,” he said flippantly. “I’d like to believe that you’re really here to turn a new leaf and start, I don’t know, working at soup kitchens and stuff to fix what you’ve done, but given our track record…” He passed his hand through the air as if swatting something away. “You gotta understand that we’re not hunky dory. If any of you and yours come after me, you’re in for a world of hurt.”

“It is wise not to trust me implicitly,” Satya agreed carefully. “I must ask: if you do not trust me, why did you agree to meet with me here?”

She looked up at him, careful to watch his face as he thought over her words. He wasn’t frowning as sharply as he had when they had first met (a good sign? She didn’t know) but he was far from smiling. An expression of neutrality, perhaps? It was hard to tell.

“Listen,” he began, leaning forward. Instinctually, she leaned back. He made a face in response to the action, but she didn’t recognize the expression. “Every part of my logical brain is saying that you’re here to stick a knife in my back and steal back what I took from Vishkar. But you don’t get to be fighting for freedom by operating on just logic. My heart says...my heart says maybe there’s a chance you actually want to do good. Maybe there’s a chance you’re not rotten through and through, yeah? So I’m out on a limb. Unwise, sure, probably. But I’m here.”

She nodded slowly. Faith was the word for what he was describing. Faith in human kindness had never been rewarded, on her part, given her past. People weren’t kind without a purpose--that much she had learned well. However, if you proved your usefulness, if you proved that you were utterly essential, then perhaps people would shelter you from harm. Those were the lessons she had taken from Vishkar. They were lessons she would have to abandon if she wanted to move forward.

“I appreciate your being here,” she said, picking her words carefully as she went. “I have become dissatisfied with Vishkar’s manner of dealing with business. They told me that we were making the world a better place,” she explained. “When in fact all they cared about was profit. They--we--were ruining the world, rather than enhancing it. I still do not entirely understand the appeal of unconditional freedom, as you have rallied for, but I do know that I was in the moral wrong. I wish to make amends.”

Lúcio leaned back in the chair, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. His eyes were still narrowed, but his face somehow seemed to have softened.

“Amends, huh? Got something in mind?” he asked.

Her heart pounded in her chest. This sounded like a second chance.

“That is why I contacted you. I don’t know where to start. I have only recently come to terms with the damage Vishkar has caused, but you are intimately familiar.” She crossed her hands on the tabletop. “I would ask that you point me in the right direction. I am not the best with words or dealing with people, but I am the best architech in the world.” This last was said without an ounce of pride of braggery. It was a bare fact, and need no embellishment.

“You’re one of those people who uses hard light gizmos to make buildings, right? I don’t know that more construction work would really make up for--” His doubtful argument was cut off by Satya as she held up a hand to interrupt.

“Do you truly not know who I am?” she asked steadily.

“Satya Vaswani,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Am I wrong? What, don’t tell me you’re a superhero or something.”

“Satya Vaswani is one of my names, yes,” she said, nodding. “I am also called Symmetra.”

Lúcio did not move, much. He stayed in his loose defensive position, leaned back as casually as he could, but the impact of her words showed on his face. She had the distinct impression that he was an expressive sort of person. His brown eyes widened and his lips parted, as if to speak, before his eyebrows came together and his expression hardened slightly. Satya did not know exactly what emotions had prompted these reactions, but he was reacting. That had the potential to be good.

“You’re an honest to god supervillain,” he said softly. The words came without barbs or accusation, and she couldn’t shake the impression that he felt sad about this turn of events. She could not understand why, but did not hazard a guess. “You’re telling me Vishkar taught you to fight?”

A slim smile graced her face. It did not reach her eyes.

“Vishkar has taught me many things, and I plan to use these things to eradicate the harm they have caused,” she told him. “My skills are, unfortunately, rather niche. I have been cultivated as--”

“As a weapon,” he interrupted.

“A technician and architect for much of my life,” she went on, trying to suppress her irritation. He wasn’t wrong, really, but she wasn’t entirely ready to acknowledge the exact truth of his words.

She averted her eyes once more, turning them to look at the tabletop. It was glass covering a lace tablecloth. There were slim scratches in the glass already from ceramic dragged across it, hardly noticeable. She trailed her synthetic fingers over the scratch, trying to sort out her emotions before she spoke about them. She had been taught all her life that as long as she followed directions, as long as she used her skills for the good of the world--that is, for Vishkar’s goals--she needn’t feel anything other than satisfaction.

“How long have you been with Vishkar, anyway?” he asked, now leaning forward. If she had looked, she would have seen that his eyes had softened. She did not look, however, merely resisting the urge to shrink away from him.

“Since I was a child,” she stated. “They saved me from a life of poverty and chaos. I would have been directionless without them, I would have--” she stopped herself short, and took a deep breath. Her volume had been steadily increasing as she tried to justify her decision to stay with them, and if she didn’t take care, she would have soon been shouting. It took almost impossible amounts of effort to keep herself in check sometimes, but self control was crucial to her lifestyle.

Lúcio was quiet for a moment. She heard him shifting in his seat, but could not manage the energy it would take to look at him after having cut herself off so succinctly. She could only manage so much in a day, no matter how ‘high functioning’ Sanjay told her she was.

“Satya,” Lúcio said softly. He reached out to take her hand, the one of flesh and blood, but she pulled away as though his hand were made of fire. She looked up at him now, her face carefully blank but her mind racing as she knew she’d see the disapproval and confusion on his face. His expression was that of a concerned smile, but nothing quite so aggressive as she’d feared. The anxiety pooled in her stomach. “Satya,” he said again.”

“I...yes?” she ventured, and was glad to see that her voice did not shake.

“You were taken advantage of,” he told her. She shook her head, but did not protest otherwise. “That’s really messed up.”

“I could have left sooner,” she said. Her voice was bitter and sharp, reflecting every harsh thought she had had about herself in the past weeks and months.

“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “But you’re doing the right thing now. I think I know some people who’d be glad to teach you how to do right. Not like Vishkar, though. These guys are real, bonafide heroes.You’ll be making your own decisions, and it’s gonna be messy. Are you ready for that?”

She took several deep breaths, and watched his face. It didn’t change. She clasped her hands in her lap once more, glad for the sensation of her own cool metal hand. _How to do right._ She swallowed.

“You trust these people?” she asked carefully.

“Sure I do! Would I suggest somebody I don’t trust?” His face lit up, light coming into his eyes and his smile dimpling his cheeks.

She paused again. She wanted to say ‘no,’ to run away, to go back to Vishkar where everything would be familiar and people would mock her but respect her nonetheless. She didn’t want to face new people, new situations, and be forced to carve her own path without guidance. Then again, she thought, what better way to make reality what it _could_ be?

“And this will be doing good for the world, not just me?” she asked, determination coming into her eyes.

He laughed lightly, easily. “Ever heard of Overwatch?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y'all so much for reading this! I haven't gotten a lot of attention yet but the comments I have gotten have just warmed my little heart and I'm so grateful! I hope you continue enjoying this. Comments and feedback are what keep me writing!

The woman who greeted her in Gibraltar was not what she had expected. Satya had long served as a representative of Vishkar for the purpose of contract negotiations, and she knew a thing or two about being the so-called face of an organization. First meetings were particularly important, as she had learned that many people thought it intelligent to form as many conclusions as possible based on the shortest period of interaction.

And yet, here she was, sitting across a conference table from a woman in yoga pants and a bomber jacket. Her name was Lena Oxton, and she was a scientific and medical anomaly, from what Satya had read, but that didn’t explain her fixation with fiddling with her own earrings. Lena had turned the chair backwards so that she could rest her chin on its back while looking at Satya, and seemed to be chewing gum.

Satya had looked into Overwatch before, and was old enough to have some passing knowledge of the feats they had accomplished, so she knew who Lena was. On the plane trip from Rio to Gibraltar, she had taken it upon herself to read into Overwatch more specifically as an organization, but had come to few conclusions. Lúcio had reassured her time and again that this was the best thing for her to be doing, and she was inclined to believe him, but this...Tracer, as she was called, was discouraging.

“We don’t usually, y’know, accept applications, do we?” she said, looking up from the resume Satya had thoughtfully provided.

“Trust me, she’s worth your time,” Lúcio said with a smile.

“I am aware that this is not strictly protocol,” Satya said calmly, forcing her anxiety below the surface as best she could. Her eyes locked on the clock behind Lena’s head. “Especially given that Overwatch’s return hasn’t been officially sanctioned by the UN, and recruitment is likely breaking a handful of laws and statues put in place to keep Overwatch from returning.”

Lena jiggled her knees in response, pushing her aviators further up her nose so that Satya could not easily make out her expression. Perhaps this was an awkward subject…? She needed to press on anyway.

“That said, I would like to join your organization. My--” she hesitated, her eyes flicking toward Lúcio, but continued anyway. “--Associate has assured me that my skills would be an asset.”

Lúcio stood up and skated over to Lena. He placed his phone in her hands, which was set to play something meant to be convincing, Satya assumed. Lena peeked over the rims of her sunglasses to watch closer, and proceeded to make a series of faces reflecting awe and surprise. The video went on, and she slowly removed her sunglasses and put them on the table. She ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed multiple times throughout the video, and when the video finished, she clapped her hands together in delight.

Satya looked at Lúcio with a baffled face, but he simply shrugged and turned back to Tracer with a bright smile.

“She’s called Symmetra,” he said, crossing his arms in satisfaction.

“That was wicked!” Lena exclaimed, leaping up from her chair. She crossed to Satya in a blur and snatched at Satya’s hands, pulling her out of her own chair. “We haven’t gotten hold of Torbjörn yet, so Winston’s been sweatin’ bullets about how we’re going to handle defensive maneuvers without turrets and things! You’re so _graceful_ , luv!”

Satya snatched her hands out of Lena’s grasp, panic rising in her throat at the sensation of her hands being squeezed so tightly. The bouncy time traveler didn’t seem to take issue with it, merely zipping over to Lúcio and grabbing at his hands instead. Satya looked on with horror and intrigue as Lena proved herself to be incredibly tactile, and to have no real idea what boundaries might be.

“We’re lucky she’s on our side now,” Lúcio said with a laugh, bouncing along with Lena.

“What d’ya mean by that, Lúcio?” Lena asked, stilling her movement if just for a moment. Her eyes were wide and imploring as she looked between them.

“He means that I have done unforgivable things,” Satya said, breaking the awkward silence before the mood could become tangible. “Are you familiar with Vishkar Corporation?”

Lena laughed, and then stopped, as she realized that Satya had not told a joke. She shrugged as if in apology. “I mean, ‘course I do? I know Lúcio, don’t I? He--er--borrowed some of the sonic tech they’ve got to fight back against injustice, all that. Why?”

Satya was prepared for this. She’d already written the script in her head, and although it pained her to actually talk about this in all frankness, she was relieved that they were back to the script.

“I have worked with Vishkar since my childhood,” she explained. “They took me from a life of abject poverty and offered me an education in exchange for my skills as an architech. Only a fraction of the population is capable of wielding hard light, and I have been found to be exceptionally talented at this due to my own unconventional methods of creating the hard light, so I have been treated with much respect and distinction in the company.”

“She was groomed as a kid to be the perfect Vishkar,” Lúcio said quietly. He had crossed his arms over his chest again, looking on with disapproval. 

“I have served as a representative of Vishkar in order to arrange contract negotiations, but more importantly, I have been tasked with clandestine operations all over the world. I am skilled at breaking and entering--or rather, entering without having broken anything other than some laws of reality--, subterfuge, and can support a team with shielding and turrets if necessary,” she went on, frowning slightly at the interruption. “These skills that I have used to help Vishkar restrict the freedoms of people all around the world are the same skills which will be useful in defending the same people against other infringements of their rights.”

Lena looked like she was biting the inside of her cheek in thought, but the expression easily could have been disapproval. Satya prayed for the former. She looked toward Lúcio, who smiled encouragingly, and back at Satya. Satya willed herself to smile, to look warm and inviting, but it didn’t seem to happen. She just stared back at Lena and swallowed sharply.

Lena made a speculative noise.

Satya continued to stare.

Lena seemed to blur, and when she was steady again, she was once again in Satya’s personal space. Her eyes widened and she backed up a step, careful not to stumble. Her face moved to a scowl, but the woman in front of her just laughed.

“You’ll do fine, love,” she said eagerly. “You won’t be the first Overwatch agent with a checkered past, and you likely won’t be the last! If you want to do good, this is the place! I can’t wait to introduce you to everybody!”

“What’s that you always say, Tracer? The world needs more heroes?” Lúcio asked with a chuckle, skating closer to them.

“Did I say that? That’s bloody brilliant, that is. I should say it more often!”

XX

Satya dreamed of flames and floods. Buildings rotting from their foundation, crumbling from their roofs haunted her. She dreamed of helplessness, of ash floating on turbulent water. She reached out, in her dreams, to help those she could but she had only one arm of flesh and blood with which to lend aid. She dreams of clumsy footed scrambles, of twisting and breaking limbs. She dreamed of chaos, and woke up sweating in her bunk.

The dream was a recurring one, but it did not make dealing with its aftermath any more pleasant. She stared at the ceiling, shivering as the sweat cooled on her skin, and wished nothing more than to simply lie in bed for the rest of the day. Light had not yet broken through the heavy blinds she had hung over the window in her dorm, and already she was thinking of giving up for the day. 

She turned her head to the side, and felt the grease on her hair. She’d been reluctant to use the communal showers on the base, but they were all that were available, so she’d simply kept to her room. She went through the motions in her head, planning each step of preparing to shower: stand up, put on some clean sweats in case somebody saw her in the halls, gather soap and shampoo, double check the map of the base that had been provided to her, walk through the halls, arrive in the shower stalls.

She rolled onto her side and stared bleakly into her dark room. Her eyes were sharp enough to determine that the room was perfectly orderly even in the dim of the early morning, but the knowledge that her body was dirty from several days of languishing in bed made her skin crawl. She needed to get up. She had to. It was necessary.

She rose to her feet, and executed her plan flawlessly. She checked her watch to determine how likely it would be that someone might actually see her and wish to converse in the halls, but given that it was not quite 0500, she guessed that nobody would be up unless they had to be. The thought soothed her, so she repeated it to herself. It would have to be enough.

She managed to clean herself entirely without incident, and changed into white slacks and a dark blue button up. The buttons were a good texture and a deep purple, so Satya liked the shirt best out of her various off-work outfits. Her shoes were simple mary-janes, rather than the ridiculous heels that Vishkar preferred her in. She would assume heels once more if she felt the inclination, but for now she felt that she’d worn enough sets of heels to last her for a year or so at the least.

She put her slightly damp hair in a loose braid to hang over her shoulder, stared at herself in the fogged mirror with satisfaction. Clean. Well dressed. Balanced. She allowed herself a small smile, and turned away from her reflection.

Now that she’d actually accomplished something other than looking over reports and trying to familiarize herself with Overwatch’s operations--no matter how hush-hush they might be at the current date--she felt almost good about herself. She was compelled to do more now that she had done some. Engaging in group training seemed to be the most natural place to begin, but she still felt nervous and uncomfortable around the others.

She catalogued them in her head as she walked back to her dorm to place her soiled clothing in a hamper.

Alphabetically, codename Mercy was the first to come to mind. Real name: Angela Ziegler. A slim blonde woman, nearly a decade older than Satya herself though visibly around the same age or even younger, who had a penchant for giggling to the extent of snorting at many of the other agents’ antics. She was Swiss, and reflected their culture reasonably. A pacifist at heart who had taken to combat if only to save others. She struck Satya as perhaps a little preachy, but given her own predisposition toward lectures on how to remake reality...she was willing to give the doctor a pass. She had expressed some discontent about Overwatch’s reformation, but had eventually joined at the others’ passionate requests.

Next was codename Tracer, who Satya had already had more occasions to meet than she entirely liked. Lena wasn’t a bad person, though she tended toward disorganized space and methods of speech, and it exhausted Satya after even a single encounter. If Satya wanted to take a walk around the base in the late hours of the evening, it was always going to be Lena to encounter her. Satya filed it away as a symptom of being chronally disassociative, but it made her uncomfortable nonetheless. She had rejoined Overwatch the moment her phone had ring, if her recounting of events was to be believed.

Then came Reinhardt Wilhelm, age 61. He was one of the founding members of Overwatch like the women, but was unique in several ways. The most notable was the fact that he towered over everyone at over 7 feet in height. He was also the oldest of the surviving Overwatch members, and by far the loudest. A literal gorilla was more soft spoken than he, and the group had taken to having him drink out of a wooden barrel because of his propensity toward shattering glasses and mugs in his giant hands. He was a kind man, who only wanted good in the world, but his very presence seemed to dictate the chaos level of the room. He had come to Gibraltar from across the globe, abandoning a world-tour with his niece to reunite with his allies. 

Winston was the last of the original members of Overwatch. As far as she knew, he had no surname. He was famous all over the world, even beyond his contributions to the Omnic crisis, simply for the fact that he was an entirely sentient and vocal gorilla who hailed from the moon. He was a bit awkward in demeanor, and tended to be easily embarrassed of whatever messes he caused with his experimentation, but was a brilliant mind and easier for Satya to talk to than one might expect. He was the one who had initiated the recall, and was extremely thankful to have a new recruit so soon after having reunited the original members.

Then, of course, there was Lúcio. Satya struggled to classify him as an agent of Overwatch even despite his presence, but of all of the inhabitants of the base, Satya was the fondest of the freedom fighter. He was understanding of her need not to be touched, and did his best to make her comfortable. He did not tolerate her speaking poorly of the other agents, and was quick to sour on conversation should she talk with too much nostalgia of her Vishkar assignments, but he was good company otherwise. He was in and out of the base, having been tasked with some of the recruitment duties, and often returned with news of people from all across the world who might be useful to the cause.

What ‘the cause’ actually consisted of evaded Satya, however. For the past several days since she had arrived in Gibraltar and been accepted into the fold, not a lot seemed to have gotten done. It wasn’t as though she were doing much either, of course, but she had expected the revival of an organization like Overwatch to have come with fanfare and much business. 

She had seen Reinhardt helping Winston clear out storage throughout the base, moving in furniture, and generally making the place livable to more than a lonely ape and his AI. She had caught Tracer trying to set up a video game system in the rec room. Mercy seemed to be more interested in gathering supplies for the medical suite than any other varieties of team building or debriefings. It seemed they were simply trying to make the base a comfortable place for the small group rather than moving on to any goals, but she was dissatisfied with their progress.

There was no time like the present for that, of course.

She equipped her photon projector to her arm comfortably, made sure that it was loaded with the energy that would be necessary for her desired tasks, and slipped from her room to the exterior of the base.

Down along the rocks, just as she had suspected, lie several empty crates and twisted metal parts. Reinhardt and Winston had stashed the junk from an entire base worth of storage rooms “out of the way,” that is to say, right next to the road one took to enter the base itself. She scoffed at their idea of keeping up Overwatch’s image, and knitted her brows together in concentration.

She began to sway back and forth, conjuring a rhythm to mind, and began moving her synthetic hand _just so_ in order to unspool strands of glimmering blue light from her photon projector. If she’d simply wanted to shoot the junk into smithereens, she could have. She had the power and it would have taken far less effort than to build a loose net, but she never did things by half measures.

When the net was done, it drifted casually from her gun. The individual braids of light shifted and changed, forming different geometric shapes as she directed them as a unit toward the pile of junk. A small smile crossed her face as she savored the taste of a construct beautifully made, and then she set to work. 

Each string of light generated a tiny gravitational pull, gently pulling each item of trash into the web as it drifted close. It almost looked like static electricity, Satya noted with pleasure. The net managed to capture and incorporate each item slowly, but it ensured that removing a single item wouldn’t cause the whole pile to cascade into the road. She controlled the drift of the net with tiny, rhythmic motions, and her smile grew as she saw the success of her plan unfurl before her in the space of only half an hour.

The smile dimmed as she realized that the light net could only go so far from where she was standing. She could not reach the furthest reaches of the pile of garbage with the level of energy she had stored in her gun, and the process of reloading it would likely snap the strands of the net she had formed, and she’d have to redo the whole process. She frowned sharply as she considered her options.

Her golden eyes flitted back and forth around the pile. The road would offer no better avenue of success than directly beside the pile, she determined. The rocks next to the road, however...If she could climb up, just a little, in order to get a better vantage point she felt that she would easily be able to reach her net over the entirety of the pile and be done with things.

Her smile returned, if just for a moment, as she considered how glad she was that she wasn’t forced into high heels while doing this. 

The climb itself was not particularly arduous, given her typical level of physical activity, but it was tricky enough. She only had access to one of her arms at present, and her slacks and mary janes were not necessarily the best suited to scaling cliffs, even if just for a bit of vantage. Still, she was an athletically inclined woman with determination no man could match. She found a niche for her feet to rest comfortably in and an appropriate leaning position from which she could reach the fullest of the pile.

“At last,” she sighed to herself. “Success.”

Satya encapsulated the pile and gladly disconnected the net from her gun. Now that it was finished being weaved, it would only be a matter of reinforcing the energy in her projector, creating an appropriate tether, and requesting the use of a transport in order to take the mess to a local waste yard. 

She shifted her feet, preparing for the journey back to flat ground, but the rock that she had deemed steady defied her expectations. It crumbled under her feet, and her eyes went wide with alarm. She tried to scramble, to stay where she was, but she slipped, and tumbled. Midair, she tried to fashion a light bridge, or something to catch her, but her photon projector was depleted.

Her eyes closed as she felt she must be approaching the ground, and she tried not to tense herself up. It was going to hurt, but bracing for impact would hurt her more than a simple fall.

_Whoomp._

When her eyes opened, she was looking at the bemused smile of the woman who caught her. Satya froze, aware that she was being touched, and the expression must have shown on her face because the woman began laughing. Strong arms eased her to the ground, and the woman took a step back, extending her hands as if to show that she was backing off.

“I never did think Overwatch was saving cats from trees, but falling women in business-casual attire defies even my lofty expectations,” the woman said, and her friendly smirk was somehow familiar to Satya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to give a special shout out to my various beta readers, once again. I don't know all of their AO3 accounts, but noirsongbird and BZArcher come to mind specifically for having helped me so much. This reminds me: This fic obviously deals with Satya's autism from time to time, and as an allistic individual, I can't promise that my interpretation of her actions are always gonna be good. If you see anything in this fic that doesn't strike you as right, please let me know. I want to do my best to be compassionate and aware and not just screw this up out of thoughtless ignorance. I appreciate you all so much for reading this! I hope I continue to do good. 
> 
> Chapter four is already in the works, but I won't post it until chapter five is almost done. That's just how it goes ;0


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to go and reply to every single comment I've gotten on this so far, because each one has meant so much to me! This is the longest chapter I've written yet...but the next one is going to be longer. Finally, Fareeha gets some decent dialogue! Enjoy!!

Satya and the mystery woman walked side by side into the watchpoint. There was no proper ‘front door’ to the complex, but they entered through the large doors that vehicles had come and gone from in days of yore. Now, the trucks that entered were of the pick-up variety and they were mostly driven by Reinhardt in search of groceries rather than in aid of world security.

The woman had put Satya down gently, and quickly backed away to preserve her precious sense of personal space, but the peculiar smirk had not left her face. Satya felt like she was burning inside, as if this woman knew something that she did not, and her extreme embarrassment over having literally fallen into her arms was surely showing on her face. She schooled her expression to be calm, perhaps even a little cold, but she felt as though her blush was generating enough heat that the tall Egyptian would be able to feel it from the respectful distance from which she walked.

When they entered the large, empty space that had once been a loading bay, the mystery woman paused and placed her hands on her hips, looking around with slowly growing smile on her face. It allowed Satya the time to actually study her.

She had short black hair, just shy of her shoulders, with four braids framing her face done up with golden beads, brown eyes with long lashes, and most notably what seemed to be intricate eye makeup on just one of her eyes. The obviously intentional lack of symmetry disturbed Satya, but the symbol beneath the woman’s eye intrigued her nonetheless. Satya was no expert on Egyptian mythology, having had no mind to study it and no requirement to, but she recognized it as a religious symbol nonetheless. It irked her that this woman’s face--her full lips, her carefully applied eyeliner, her asymmetrical makeup--was so familiar to her, but Satya couldn’t place a name to her face.

She wasn’t wearing anything in particular that might catch Satya’s attention. A simple black tank top and navy yoga pants showed off the definition in the muscle in her arms and legs, which indicated that she lead an active lifestyle, but otherwise provided no clue as to who she might be or why she might be here, much less why Satya would recognize her.

“Is this where Overwatch has been hiding all these years?” the woman shouted, cupping her hands to her mouth to project her voice further, startling Satya out of her intense study.

Lena poked her head from one of the upper floors that looked out onto the loading bay, chirped in surprise, blurred, and was abruptly in front of them. She wrapped her arms tight around the mystery woman, making theatrically loud sobbing sounds. Satya took a step back in alarm, and Lena was hanging from one of the woman’s arms as the woman laughed.

“You were just a baby last time I saw you!” Tracer said, dangling from her arm.

“And you look exactly the same,” the woman quipped back, lowering her to the floor.

“What’s all the ruckus about?” roared Reinhardt, coming from the opposite side of the building. He set eyes on the trio on the bottom floor and his face lit up so brightly that Satya could see his expression even from afar. He ran full tilt, nearly falling down the stairs, until he stood before the women.

He scooped the mystery woman into his arms and whirled her around before placing her on the floor so gently she might have been made from glass. If Satya didn’t know better, she’d think he had tears in his eyes. She looked closer. He definitely had tears in his eyes, and seemed to be making no effort to stop them from streaming down his face.

“Old man,” the woman said affectionately. She patted his arm, and he kneeled in front of her.

“Your mother would be so proud to see you here today,” he told her, sniffling weakly.

She laughed and shook her head. “I thought you knew her best of all.”

He laughed, and then cut himself short with another sniffle. “You’re right, of course! She’d be livid! And extremely proud. Just look at you! Someone’s been eating her broccoli after all, yes?”

Satya cleared her throat delicately, and offered a tight smile to the three who turned to look at her. Reinhardt was still crying, and Lena was suspiciously shiny eyed. 

“I hate to...intrude,” she began, her eyes seeking any mites of dust or dirt on her sleeves rather than facing the gaze of all three of them at once. “But would someone please tell me who this woman is?”

“Right, I meant to ask who threw me a welcoming party,” the woman said. Satya glanced up, and saw that smirk spreading across her face once more. Satya resisted the urge to stare at her feet, or her sleeves, or anything else. “I expected a beer or maybe some pizza, but a beautiful woman straight from the sky? Only Overwatch can throw _that_ kind of party.”

“From the…?” Lena repeated, confusion plain upon her face. She looked at Satya, and back at the mystery woman. “What happened, exactly? I feel like I’ve missed something.”

“I had climbed upon the rocks near the entrance in order to get a proper vantage point in my work to clear the junk heap,” Satya explained calmly. “I slipped.”

“She fell for me as soon as I walked past,” the woman said, laughing. “It’s a hell of a pickup tactic, don’t you think?”

“I was not--it was an accident,” Satya said, irritation adding an unintentional edge to her tone.

“Lucky accident,” the woman conceded, nodding. “For you, anyway. You could’ve been seriously hurt if I hadn’t been there.”

Satya took a short breath, and nodded back. “I thank you. I am sorry for not doing so earlier. I was understandably addled, I think.”

The woman smiled, and Satya could only hope it was a smile of understanding and not mockery or derision. She often had to hope such things.

“Satya,” Lena said, moving to stand in front of both of them. “This is Fareeha Amari.” Her accent added an ‘r’ sound to the end of the woman’s name that Satya found inexplicably funny. She did not laugh. “Her mum was one of the founding members of Overwatch, and the poor thing never got to join up! The whole lot was disbanded before she was old enough to hold a rocket launcher!”

“A rocket launcher,” Satya repeated dryly. 

“I was an ambitious kid,” Fareeha (evidently) replied.

“We are delighted that you have decided to join us!” Reinhardt said, and it looked for a moment like he might be moved to pick Fareeha up again, but he did not. “When I heard of the recall, I passed on the message to recruit you immediately!”

“I would have been here sooner, but I had to resign from my security firm, and then there were the parties. So many parties. Everyone suddenly wanted to say farewell and tearfully proclaim how I was the best security chief they had ever served under. Even some men who never served with me were emotional,” Fareeha explained, casually stepping forward as if to indicate that the conversation could easily be held while she explored the rest of the watch point.

“You sound like a competent leader,” Satya acknowledged. She felt immensely out of place given the circumstances, but was too intrigued by the current situation to absent herself and finish her work on the junk heap.

“You would know, would you not?” Fareeha asked, casually looking over her shoulder at Satya. The brief eye contact sent chills down Satya’s spine.

Satya opened her mouth to ask what that was meant to imply, but Angela shambled out of the medical bay in pajamas and a lab coat and nearly dropped her mug of coffee with a yelp. She cried out Fareeha’s name and began waving frantically, apparently completely unashamed of her cherub patterned nightgown or her fluffy devil slippers. Fareeha called out a brief reply, and she was lead to the dorms where she could deposit her travel bag.

Satya found herself sitting in the small dining room the base used for eating and socializing with a warm cup of tea in her hands, watching the revelry that came with the group reuniting with an old friend unfold. It seemed that all the original members of Overwatch had been close with Fareeha’s mother, and known Fareeha herself as a young child, and they all were desperate to hear how she’d been. Reinhardt had done his best to keep in touch with her, but given her military service and his touring the world, even they had some catching up to do. 

Lúcio drifted over at one point to sit with her, reassuring her that it was overwhelming even for him. He’d been caught up in the exuberance easily, asking a dozens of questions about Fareeha’s past with Overwatch, what she’d been like as a child, even demanding to see pictures of her and ‘OG Overwatch’ in order to participate in the fun. He had discovered that the design under her eye was a tattoo--not makeup as Satya had believed-- as well as that it was called the Eye of Horus, and relayed this information with excitement. Satya was grateful that he should check in with her, and she offered him a deliberately warm smile as payment, but soon he dove back into the fray.

She couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that she had met Fareeha somewhere else. Vishkar did not hire security services, as its architechs were trained in combat to circumvent this need, so it was unlikely that they would have met at work. She combed through her memories, trying to think of a time when she _hadn’t_ been at work recently. Perhaps in Rio…? That didn’t seem likely. Unless Fareeha’s face had been covered, it seemed impossible that Satya would be able to forget her.

The tattoo in particular nagged at her. It was remarkable, and certainly a bold choice, even if the aesthetic of it bothered Satya on an innate level. It was exactly the type of detail that she should remember, and it was exactly the thing that made Satya believe that she had met the woman before. It was inexplicably familiar.

She watched Fareeha from across the room as the woman shared stories and jokes with her old friends and mentors. Heroes. Fareeha had idolized them, from what she said. She felt that her place was protecting the world, she said, and nothing her mother said could have stopped her. When she talked about her mother, the mood dampened slightly. Something had happened, Satya inferred, but she had a hard time discerning exactly what. It only took moments for Fareeha to change the subject to something lighter, and she would toss her head back and laugh.

After one such joyous laugh, the newcomer tossed a glance over at Satya, and that same smirk crossed her face.

Satya’s eyes widened as everything clicked into place.

“Hyperborea,” she murmured. Her voice was so quiet that it was basically impossible for the others to have heard her over the din of general conversation, but the security chief winked knowingly at Satya, and the former architech’s heart pounded in her chest.

She stood abruptly with intent to leave to gather her thoughts, but the scrape of her chair across the floor brought unwanted attention. Tracer perked up to see Satya standing and the time traveler made it her business to make sure that Satya didn’t leave in the middle of the revelry. 

“Whatcha doin’, luv?” she asked, her body seeming to smear across the room until it snapped into human shape directly in front of Satya. She would never get used to that, she vowed.

“I am going to finish clearing the junk heap,” she explained calmly.

“The work ethic on you! S’not like we have any missions yet! Relax, Satya!” Lena attempted to take her by the shoulders and lead her into the fray of conversation, but Satya delicately stepped out of the range of her grubby British hands.

“I do not intend to leave any projects half-finished.” She smiled icily and nodded, hoping to keep up appearances of civility.

Lena shrugged, putting her hands up in the air as if to indicate that she planned to back off, and zoomed back over to the rest of the group. Satya looked after her, wondering if it were really so hard for the woman to simply walk, and caught Fareeha watching her. She stiffened and left the room as quickly as she was able.

She removed herself to her dormitory in order to recharge her photon projector for the final leg of her project, but she paused in order to compose herself. She stood in front of the narrow floor length mirror on the wall opposite her bed. It had been a gift from Winston--he’d claimed that it had been something he’d found and he had no use for, but Angela had insisted that it was more likely that he knew that she hadn’t much in the way of possessions and wanted her to have a few things for her to have for herself. She appreciated the gesture, but wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea of the great ape pitying her position.

Her hair had almost come free of her braid, she noticed, and there was still traces of dust from her climb on her trouser legs. She made a face of disgust and cleaned herself thoroughly, retying her braid along the way. Once she looked clean, she took a deep breath and made the effort required to figure out exactly why she was quite so worked up from having seen the security chief once again.

Was it guilt? Fareeha had seen Satya at her lowest--doing Vishkar’s dirty work after having the seeds of doubt sown in her mind--so it seemed a likely enough explanation. She grimaced in the mirror, and somehow felt that it was not the entire reason. She had been so determined that night, and ended it with an uncomfortable vulnerability. The others may have seen videos of her in action, or heard of Symmetra, but over the last week they had only referred to her as Satya. They knew her as a person, a separate entity from Symmetra the villain. Only this Fareeha had seen both Symmetra and Satya in one person, the combination of sterling strength and childish vulnerability.

She turned away from the mirror, smoothing down her blouse nervously. The blouse was soft, and touching it helped her frantic mind, if just a little bit. She had things to do, and dwelling on her own weaknesses was not on the agenda.

By the time she got to the front in order to attach a light cable to the junk heap, there was already a pick up truck grumbling its way toward the pile. She quirked an eyebrow at it, and opted to ignore it. She figured it was the rest of Fareeha’s belongings (assuming the one shoulder bag she’d brought up with her wasn’t the entirety of her luggage--which made sense considering it was highly unlikely that her Raptora armor could fit in the bag) and moved on, beginning to weave the tether. In the back of her head, she hoped that the truck would be no longer in use when she finished, so she could take it somewhere more useful.

The rumble of the truck’s engine, however, did not dissipate as it ought to have if it were going to continue into the watchpoint. She ignored it. She heard the door open behind her, and her skin crawled at the idea of someone sitting and watching her, but she still ignored it. She had a task.

A low whistle drew her attention, and she glanced to her left to see Fareeha once more. She was so startled her hard light construct nearly dissipated entirely, but she forced herself to focus and finish her work. The taller woman had put on a bomber jacket and sunglasses, apparently having not anticipated the chill that was Gibraltar summers, and apparently driven the pickup with intent to...annoy Satya in private?

“Can I assist you?” Satya asked coldly. She didn’t mean it to come out quite as harshly as it had, but her own awkwardness around the other woman came through in her tone and made her sound like a villain.

“Sure, let me help,” Fareeha said, glancing down at Satya with a slight upturn to her lips. It was the type of smile that was easily missed, and if Satya hadn’t been looking so intently at her face, she surely would have as well.

“This is my task. I would like to complete it on my own,” Satya protested. 

“I thought you wanted to assist me,” Fareeha said, her slight smile growing. “I’d like to get my bearings in town, and get to know our newest member. I’ve been in contact with Lúcio for a month or so now, and the rest are old friends. You’re the stranger, and I’d like to get to know you.”

“Why?” Satya asked before she could think better of it.

“Knowing my team is important to me,” Fareeha said with a shrug, and started to walk back toward the truck. “And I do hope you’re on my team, don’t you? Hitch it to the back and get in.”

Satya wavered for a moment, considering turning the cold shoulder to this woman in order to isolate herself further. She _could_ just ignore Fareeha the entire drive, she rationalized, and allow herself to become more and more distant, and less and less helpful to this organization. The thought wasn’t very appealing. The alternative was sitting next to her and discussing their pasts, becoming hopeful that the two could truly be allies or even friends, only for Fareeha to become ultimately disappointed in Satya’s shady past and poor people skills. The latter seemed remarkably less pleasant.

_The illusion of choice..._

The junk pile rose elegantly as she hitched it to the truck, seeming weightless as a balloon as it trailed a safe distance behind the pickup. Even doing something as simple as disposing of waste and detritus could be beautiful to her, and she calmed herself with the knowledge that she was doing something. She got into the truck shortly thereafter. 

“Do you like music?” Fareeha asked, putting the pickup into gear. It was a converted old-style truck, from back when shifting gears manually was considered a normal thing. It didn’t have wheels or anything entirely barbaric, but the CD player alone was testament to its anachronistic qualities. Perhaps Overwatch was tighter on funds than Satya had thought.

“Yes,” she answered after a too-long pause. She’d been thinking about the truck, not the question at hand.

“Good,” Fareeha said, thumbing the radio on. It was automatically tuned to some classic rock station, playing early 21st century hits, but she kept flicking at it until it settled on something both upbeat and instrumental. There were electronic notes as well, but the station seemed to focus on a blend of contemporary electronica (a la their revolutionary frog-loving friend) and more traditional beats.

Satya raised an eyebrow at the choice, but said nothing to argue with it. In fact, she was more surprised than upset at the music. From Fareeha’s interactions with Reinhardt and the rest, she’d assumed that Fareeha was going to appreciate Hasselhoff more than Spanish drums.

“Don’t like it?” Fareeha asked, glancing toward Satya as she drove on toward the town proper.

“I do like it,” Satya said quietly. She felt Fareeha’s gaze, but did not return it. Instead, she watched clusters of birds gliding on the ocean breeze. It was a soothing sight.

“Good. If that kid with the dreads had lied to me, I’d give him a noogie,” she replied with a soft chuckle. 

Satya dared a peek at Fareeha without turning her head. The other woman seemed relaxed, but focused. One arm dangled out of the truck, resting on the open window, while the other was comfortably gripping the wheel. Even through the sunglasses, Fareeha’s eyes were sharp on the road.

“You asked him about me?” Satya asked carefully.

“I volunteered to drive the truck over to help you, and I didn’t want things to be awkward,” Fareeha replied with a shrug. “Lúcio seemed to be pretty friendly with you, so I asked him. He’s the one who hit me up about joining Overwatch, actually, so I get the impression he’s pretty friendly overall.” 

All this was said in a perfectly conversational tone--the type that Satya had a nearly impossible time determining subtones with. Was this all friendly? Were there undertones of sarcasm? She’d wrack her brain for weeks if she let herself. She shook her head with a motion so small that one would have to be watching very closely to notice it at all.

“Your mother was Ana Amari, I take it,” Satya said, turning her head so that she could watch Fareeha closely with her peripheral vision.

Fareeha shrugged. “Emphasis on the was. She’s dead now. I’m sure you read about it.”

Satya didn’t need to be good at reading tones to determine that this would be a sore subject. She bowed her head briefly.

“I am sorry for your loss.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fareeha said, and Satya only barely caught her glancing in her direction. “Mind if we change the subject?”

Satya paused for a moment, but nodded. “Not at all. What would you prefer we talk about?”

“You,” Fareeha said plainly. Satya turned her head sharply toward the driver in alarm, but recovered herself quickly. She almost didn’t hear Fareeha’s quiet laugh. “I’m surprised you like music, actually. No offense, but you come off a little uptight, so I half expected you to say that music is just noise.” 

They arrived at the small town nearest the base, and stalled at a traffic light. Fareeha used the opportunity to turn and look at Satya more directly. Her lips still had that faintly upturned quality that Satya couldn’t place as either a smile or a challenge, and her eyes retained their focus as she watched the former architech’s face. Chills descended Satya’s spine.

“Music is quite important to me,” she admitted carefully, just in time for the light to turn green. As soon as Fareeha looked elsewhere, her heart rate slowed again. “At Vishkar I used dancing to create hard light, rather than the more rigid methods known to my peers. It distinguishes me as the top architech in the world.”

“Impressive.” She did not take her eyes off the road. “Do you know where the dump is, exactly?”

Satya scoffed despite herself. “It’s not 2010, we have GPS,” she said sternly, and took her mobile from her pocket. 

She plugged in their coordinates and found a route to the landfill--a good twenty minutes drive from their current location--in seconds. She noted with satisfaction that the landfill was, in fact, a high-tech recycling plant with an outdated name. The plant used some technology that Vishkar had patented and sold to the public as a public relations move over ten years ago, she knew.

She placed it on the dashboard in such a position that Fareeha could consult it at a glance, and considered it a job well done.

“Since you mentioned it--is Vishkar an alright subject of conversation?” Fareeha asked quietly after a few moments of only music breaking the silence between them.

Satya wanted to say ‘no.’ She wanted never to talk about Vishkar except under her own terms. She saw the looks people gave her at the watchpoint when she mentioned the name even just casually, and she already regretted mentioning it to Fareeha.

“...Yes,” she allowed, after a pause. If she didn’t talk about it, she would only dwell on it until she spiraled to the point of staying in bed for another week. With her jaw set and a faint unintentional scowl on her face, she turned toward Fareeha. “I’m sure you have questions. The last time we met, we were on opposite sides; and I most certainly was not on the right one.”

Fareeha laughed and glanced over, only to look startled at the level of eye contact Satya initiated. She shook her head, her beaded braids swinging and glinting in the morning sun. 

“You remembered, then,” she said. “You had the most--” she paused, laughter breaking through before her sentence could be completed. “The most _baffled_ expression on your face!” She chuckled some more, wiping at her eyes in apparent mirth, and Satya’s scowl did not fade.

“Please do not laugh at me,” Satya said, her voice sharp and harsh.

Fareeha glanced over at her, her own laughter fading. “Sorry,” she said, raising her eyebrows slightly. “I did have questions, actually.”

Satya took a deep breath, and found that she was pleasantly surprised at Fareeha’s reaction. Most, when prompted to stop laughing at her, only laughed more. Even Lúcio sometimes wanted to pass her request off as banter, and Lena had no concept of not laughing at anything she found strange. Fareeha was the oddity in acknowledging the request for what it was and apologizing immediately. Satya turned away and caught sight of the birds again. Calm.

“Ask, then.” Her voice was softer than she had intended, and sharper. She still sounded angry, although she had already moved on to find the birds weaving through the air perfectly beautiful.

“What happened to make you doubt?” Fareeha asked, easing onto the brakes as they pulled up to another red light. Satya wasn’t sure, but it seemed like Fareeha was doing her best to keep her eyes on the road. She appreciated it.

“Doubt Vishkar?” Satya mused. “In Rio de Janeiro, they burnt a building to the ground rather than accede that the city had awarded a slumlord a city planning contract. I do not believe that was right or reasonable for them to do. They claim to make the world a better place, but children were hurt.” While she had begun calmly, the final words of her diatribe came with a seething disgust that she had successfully concealed for some time.

She shocked herself with the level of vitriol that poured forth from her lips when prompted. When discussing the matter with Lúcio, she had often tried to understand Vishkar’s perspective, and justify why she had decided to stay with the corporation after that. She knew how Lúcio would react: with crossed arms and a stern face, his eyebrows coming together and his lips forming a beautifully angry pout. He had no patience for her justifications, and she respected that, but she did not want him to think her a fool for staying.

Fareeha, however, just nodded.

“Why not leave then?” she asked. The question that Satya dreaded.

“It was all I knew,” she admitted coldly.

Fareeha glanced at the navigation, but otherwise only made a soft sound to indicate that she’d heard Satya. Satya found herself watching the security chief closely once more, trying to determine what the other woman thought of her. Moments passed in silence, and a new song began to play on the radio.

She did not know why she had told such a full story to Fareeha when prompted. Perhaps it was because Fareeha had seen her at her worst. Perhaps it was simply because she did not know Fareeha yet, and it was worth taking a risk. Perhaps she was just foolish.

“I grew up in Overwatch,” Fareeha said, startling Satya with the sudden break in silence. “My ma was one of the founding members, and I grew up on bases and watchpoints all over the world. I wanted nothing more than to be a hero like her.” She glanced over at Satya with a smile. “This is all public information about me, just so you know. My hero worship is well documented,” she remarked with a laugh.

“Why are you telling me this?” Her voice was soft, almost reverent, as she asked this question. It seemed a non sequitur, to say the least, but she was somehow glad to not be the only one telling her life story.

“I know what it’s like to only know one thing, or so you think, and have it fall apart around you,” Fareeha said. “Sometimes it helps you find yourself.”

Satya hummed acknowledgement, finding no words with which to reply. She assumed, of course, that Fareeha was referring to the law that rendered Overwatch illegal. On a second musing, she considered that it could also mean the hero worship of Ana Amari, and Amari’s death.

She turned her eyes to her lap, not sure what to do with all the thoughts running through her head.

The duo made it to the recycling plant and deposited their trash without hitch. The only conversation that happened on the way back was kept to commenting on the birds, or the sunlight playing on the ocean below the cliffs. They both agreed that it was a beautiful sight to behold. Fareeha’s chuckle at Satya’s casual comment on how lovely it must be to fly baffled her, but went without comment.

That night, Satya joined the rest of the agents for dinner. She sat next to Lúcio, who thanked her for helping out with the restoration of the base, and found herself picking through her salad with her thoughts lingering on bright beads in sunlight and birds on the wing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all in for a ride! This chapter was about 11 pages altogether, and the next chapter is closer to 15...and I'm not done yet. I really hope you have all been enjoying this, and continue to do so! As always, comments and feedback are my lifeblood and let me know what I'm doing right (and wrong!!) so I would love if you told me what you thought about this! Thanks so much for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading this, everyone! My friends bobber, duo, and Rose all looked this over before I could post it and thus I owe them my thanks as well. A brief note: This fic is set in the same continuity as Rose's fic [Knights in White Satin](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8542825/chapters/19584631)

During the remainder of the week, Satya took it upon herself to aid in the reestablishment of the Gibraltar watchpoint as a livable environment. Although her primary education had been rigorously architectural and mathematical, with her own primary interest in dance as enrichment, she had little lived experience in restoring a base. If Vishkar had its way with the place, the watchpoint would be demolished and rebuilt better than ever before. Sometimes, as she went through empty training rooms with a surgical mask on and a duster in hand in pursuit of cobwebs, she speculated on posing that type of plan to Winston.

However, as she worked side by side with the other agents, she came to find that there was something to be said for restoring a building without the use of a bulldozer. On the most basic level, her understanding of slightly outdated architecture (and how she would personally like to better her understanding of the structure) improved every day that she worked on the base. However, each day brought her a new surprise that added to her intense (if somewhat nebulous in origin) satisfaction at having decided to join Overwatch.

The first surprise came in her first night of excellent sleep after having mopped a solid 75% of the base. She had worked mostly on her own through the entire day, simply working on the floors to make sure nobody would think twice about walking the halls in slippers, and when she had memorized the complete layout of the base and collapsed onto her cot at the end of the day, she did not dream.

She awoke the next morning slightly sore, but somewhat at peace with herself. She did not feel as though she were choking on ashes. She didn’t know what to do with the information that mopping had the unintended effect of bringing about some illusion of inner peace, if at least for one night, but she was glad to have it nonetheless.

The second was harder to pinpoint.

She had been on hands and knees, using the combination of an extremely finessed hard light laser and a toothbrush to clear some mold from a handful of obsolete training dummies she’d found in a back room, when Winston had entered the scene.

“Those old things?” he’d speculated aloud. “I thought we’d gotten rid of those ages ago! Satya, you don’t have to go through all that to clean them up.”

Lena had come in behind him, zipping and blurring through the doorway to peer over Satya’s shoulder and look at what, exactly, she was going through.

“Mold?” Lena exclaimed, aghast. “Can a robot even _get_ moldy?”

Satya had been as surprised as anyone else when she’d laughed at Lena’s reaction to the mold.

“I like doing it,” she’d admitted, sitting up to take a look at the two interlopers. “I’d rather they not go to waste, and it gives me something to do with my hands.”

“I know how that is, Satya!” Lena had replied excitedly. She bounced over to land in front of Satya, leaning down with her hands on her knees. “If I don’t have somethin’ in my hands while I’m tryin’ to think, I’ll go bonkers in a minute flat! I also like chewin’ on things! Explains my dogtags, doncha think?” She hooked a thumb behind her dogtags and extended them toward Satya, revealing the myriad tooth marks in the metal.

“Lena, that’s pretty gross,” Winston said, moving forward to admonish his friend before Satya even had the time to recoil.

She whirled back to look at Winston, dropped the dogtags, and tucked her hands behind her back. She looked back at Satya with wide eyes and a small pout, reminding Satya ever so much of a scolded child.

“I’m real sorry, luv,” she said, shoving her hands in her back pockets. “I just thought we’d have somethin’ to bond about, y’know?”

“I understand,” Satya said, tugging a strand of her thick black hair and pushing it behind her ear. “I have never been compelled to chew on anything, but I think I understand the sentiment.”

“Awwh!!” Lena’s only reply came with the girl clasping her hands over her chest, and Satya was delighted to note that she didn’t try to go in for a hug.

Winston finally came to stand by the duo, his knuckles only barely brushing the ground. He was observing the training bot with careful eyes, and when he caught Satya looking at him he laughed an awkward laugh and shuffled slightly further away. She offered him a small smile, in the hopes of soothing him, and he smiled in response.

“I think you’re right about restoring these,” he said quietly, stroking his chin and looking back at them. “We don’t exactly have any government funding anymore, so going out and buying current models would be wasteful at best, stupid at worst.”

He glanced back at Satya and gestured for Lena to follow him to wherever they had been heading originally.

“I’m glad our ideas are in harmony,” Satya said, getting back into a working position.

“Thanks for helping out, I mean it,” Winston said, but he scuttled away before Satya could reply.

“What was that she said? That was bloody beautiful, innit. Why don’t you ever say things like that?” Lena stage whispered as they left the room, and Satya chuckled to herself. Later, she wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear that or not.

The third surprise from cleaning up the base had come from Fareeha Amari, but somehow that in itself was not surprising at all.

Although Angela was a scientist, she was a doctor more than a technician and Winston did not always want her trampling through his lab unaided. He specifically asked Satya to help Angela organize his laboratory while he helped Lúcio with something he seemed reluctant to talk about in great detail. He told them that they would know what to do with sensitive materials, and have a better idea of what not to put in their mouths.

Before Satya could ask who would be foolish enough to put unknown objects from laboratories in their mouth, she recalled her conversation concerning Lena’s oral fixation, and let the topic drop with only a brief snort of amusement.

So the two scientists had set to work ensuring that none of Winston’s experiments were covered in peanut butter, and that his personal and professional files were not intermixed. As they found, the latter was unfortunately a very tangible reality. In the last several years, personal and professional lives had become a bit blurry for Winston. Photo albums were mixed with lab reports, and both were filed in a cabinet labeled ‘Toxic,’ despite the obvious untruth of the matter.

Angela had made some comment about how the situation needed a woman’s touch, but Satya elected to ignore it in favor of working hard. She pulled a chair over to the erroneously labeled ‘Toxic’ cabinet (why anyone in the 21st century should have a filing cabinet was beyond her, but she chose not to question Winston’s methods after the revelation of how much data was nearly stolen by the attempted Talon hack), and set to work.

The first folder contained a thesis from nearly a decade prior to Overwatch’s dissolution, posing a theory on the effect of biotic rifles on healing wounds in the long term. It looked interesting, but clearly more in Angela’s field of work than her own. From a quick glance through, it seemed that Winston had been wanting to study the development of a rifle that could determine friend and foe in order to eliminate the potential of friendly fire casualties.

She placed it in a cabinet nearby labeled ‘Old Research,’ in the ‘B’ section.

The next folder she opened startled her if just because it did not contain neatly bound pages in a binder but several loose leaf photographs and polaroids which tumbled onto her lap as soon as she opened it. She rolled her eyes at Winston’s evident love of anachronistic media and poor organizational habits, and went to take a closer look at the photographs in order to categorize and sort them.

Pictures of Jack Morrison, who she’d read about, looked staged more often than not. When he was smiling, it was always a blurry candid. Pictures of Gabriel Reyes, who was touted as one of the founders of Overwatch but got curiously little press coverage after that from what research Satya had done, looked like he was always ready to pose whenever Winston should point a camera at him. He had an easy smile and a flair for the dramatic, she noted. It was too bad the two of them were dead, she mused, as she would rather like to meet them. More founders followed, and she noticed herself smiling as she looked at pictures of Reinhardt making faces of shock and surprise at a Halloween party or a young Angela looking dead on her feet with a massive mug of presumably coffee in her hand.

It was when she began unearthing pictures of a woman in a beret with a curious facial tattoo that the surprise happened.

“Angela,” she began, glancing over her shoulder at the doctor. “Who is this? She looks just like Fareeha.”

Angela disentangled herself from the mass of wires she’d been attempting to unravel and seemed glad for the break.

“Hm? Oh, that’s Ana. You have a good eye; that’s her mother.” Angela scratched the back of her head, and her bun began to come loose around her head. She didn’t seem to notice. “The tattoo might have been a clue, though.”

“Tattoos are not typically hereditary,” Satya remarked dryly.

Angela shrugged and nodded and proceeded to pull a chair over to take a look at the pictures as well. “Oh! I love that one,” she said, taking one from Satya’s lap. “Ana was such a competent leader, but she was also something of a hard-ass, excuse my French. It was always so nice to see her smile.”

The picture that Angela referred to was a picture of Ana out of uniform, in a deep blue hijab, holding who could only be a miniature Fareeha on her shoulders. Ana’s eyes were closed in laughter, and Fareeha had her tongue stuck out at the camera. Reinhardt was blurry in the foreground, and Satya could only assume that he was the one prompting such a reaction from the girls.

“Did you know them well?” Satya asked carefully. She didn’t want to sound nosy, as nosiness lead to allegations of being a spy sent from Vishkar to ruin Overwatch, but she was genuinely curious. Fareeha had mentioned her mother, and her mother’s death, but other than that it seemed to be a sensitive subject.

Angela nodded. “Mm, yes. Fareeha was like a niece or a little sister to me, you know. I was practically a child in relation to the others when I joined, so it was nice to have someone even younger than myself to chat with about normal things. With some of the others--” She wobbled her hand through the air, as though Satya was meant to understand what the gesture meant. She did not. “It was all life and death, hah. Comes from being a doctor, I guess. Fareeha wished only to talk of fighter jets and super heroes. Everyone thought of her as such a serious little girl, but once you talked to her she was just as much a child as anyone else her age.”

The doctor sighed, and excused herself to get back to work untangling wires. Satya took that as a cue to return to work herself, and to cease speculation on the past. She tucked the photos away in a photo album, and began filing as efficiently as she was able. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder at what Fareeha was like as a child. Surely growing up alongside Overwatch was not the most typical of childhoods, but neither was being groomed as the best architech in the world.

She thought about the picture again, and wondered if Ana had tried to give Fareeha a normal childhood despite the ever present death and destruction that came with fighting wars on a worldwide scale. She wondered what it would be like to have someone to shield her from a world of starvation without pointing out how close she had come to starving herself. She wondered how much of her own childhood was an anomaly that would give a stranger cause to linger on a photo of her in her youth.

She wondered if pictures of her as a child even existed.

The laboratory was more or less organized in just a day given the diligence of the two scientists who had worked on it, and Satya was told to take the evening to relax. She caught herself staring at Fareeha a handful of times as she laughed and told stories with the others, and eventually excused herself to her dorm early that night.

She thought about sleeping, but the compact terminal on her desk drew her attention. While the furniture had come mostly complementary from the base itself and the floor length mirror was a gift from Winston, the terminal had been given to her by Reinhardt. It was his, he said, but he had wanted more space on his own devices to store every single selfie and video he had taken over the last 50 something years, so had upgraded and given her his leftovers. The carelessness with which he had given it to her had pleased her beyond words, if just because it genuinely seemed as though this was a gift of practicality rather than pity.

She sat cross legged in her chair, her back perfectly straight, and accessed Athena’s search function. She logged in with brief keystrokes, taking small pleasure in how smoothly her fingers moved across the keyboard. Any perfection was perfection to take delight in, she determined.

> {{QUERY}} >> AMARI_FAREEHA  
>  {{processing}}  
>  {{results}} . . .  
>  NAME: Fareeha Amari  
>  CALLSIGN: Pharah  
>  STATUS: Alive  
>  AGE: 32  
>  OCCUPATION(S): Overwatch Agent (current), Security Chief  
>  AFFILIATION(S): Overwatch (via family), Helix Security International (former)  
>  [[Is there anything more specific you are after, Agent Symmetra?]]

Satya raised an eyebrow at the AI addressing her directly, and narrowed her eyes briefly at the use of her...callsign, was it now?

> {{QUERY}} >> AMARI_FAREEHA::CHILDHOOD  
>  {{processing}}  
>  {{results}} . . .  
>  Agent Fareeha Amari was raised during the height of Overwatch’s golden years by Ana Amari, one of the commanding members of Overwatch. Tensions between the pair is well documented as Ana publicly disapproved of Fareeha joining the military despite Fareeha’s goals of aiding the world wherever she was able.  
>  The following holovids are available for download from the database. . .  
>  [16:52:53 20/12/20XX]  
>  [05:15:16 11/05/20XX]  
>  [cont. . .]  
>  [[I am an incredibly advanced artificial intelligence, Agent Vaswani. You don’t need to shout.]]

Satya snorted in amusement, and pulled her hands back from the keyboard for a moment to think. She braided and rebraided her hair twice before she was satisfied with the next query she wished to enter.

> {{QUERY}} >> Apologies, Athena. Can you show me information about Fareeha’s education?  
>  {{processing}}  
>  [[That’s more like it.]]  
>  {{results}} . . .  
>  Agent Fareeha Amari was educated primarily via boarding schools before the age of eight years old, at which time she successfully negotiated a deal which would allow her to spend more time with her mother.  
>  From the ages eight to fourteen, she was educated via private online tutors.  
>  As she grew older, the tensions between herself and her mother rose to the point that she was sent to stay with her aunt and attend public school in Egypt for the duration of her primary education.  
>  She graduated early and attended a public college for two years before joining the military.  
>  [[I don’t mean to impose, but you would more easily find this information if you simply talked to Fareeha.]]

Satya rolled her eyes, but found herself smiling nonetheless. If anyone human (or simian, perhaps) had said such things to her, she would have been offended, but AI did not mean harm. They meant what they said. It was much easier to communicate with Athena, for their conversations lacked the minefields that were body language and tone.

> {{QUERY}} Thank you, Athena. That will be all.  
>  {{processing}}  
>  {{results}} . . .  
>  [[You are most welcome, Satya.]]

She shut down the terminal with the remnants of a smile still on her face. Even if she felt awkward around much of the other members of Overwatch, she thought that perhaps she could find a friend in Athena.

After quickly changing into sleep clothes, she sat on her bed with intent to sleep early. Before she could successfully get under the covers, however, a knock sounded against her door. She sat upright, stared at the door in alarm and faint hope that whoever it was would go away, and resigned herself to greeting whoever the intruder was when a second knock came. Anxiety spiked as she went through all the possibilities of who it could be. Vishkar, come to reclaim her? Winston, to let her know she’s no longer welcome at Gibraltar? The authorities, come to shut down Overwatch and throw her and all of her new friends into prison?

She opened the door with a steely face, ready to accept anything.

Except, perhaps, Fareeha Amari standing in the hallway with mussed, unbraided hair and a vaguely confused expression.

Somehow, Satya’s heart did not stop hammering in her chest despite the lack of impending danger at the arrival of her ally.

“Fareeha,” Satya greeted coolly. “May I ask to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Her words were too formal, she noted, and she sounded stiff. She was stiff and nervous, but she didn’t want to sound like it.

“I wondered the same, myself,” Fareeha said, gently pushing past Satya to take a seat on the desk chair. She rubbed at her eyes blearily. “I was getting ready for bed when Athena pinged me. She said you wanted to speak to me…?” Her last sentence trailed into a question.

Satya glanced at the clock. “It is only 9PM,” she said.

Fareeha shrugged her broad shoulders. “I did a lot of heavy lifting today,” she explained. “Reinhardt is a friendly oaf, sure, but he’s a drill sergeant if you let him be. Anyway, you look like you were getting into bed too, so don’t judge me for an early bedtime.”

Satya looked down at her own pajamas. She was wearing a long pale blue nightgown with faded golden embroidery along the collar and hemline, nothing extravagant or embarrassing, yet she felt her cheeks heat nonetheless. Fareeha, meanwhile, was wearing a slightly too-large t-shirt emblazoned with a cartoon hamburger featuring eyes and a lolling tongue with horrifyingly orange short-shorts. While her outfit was far more ridiculous on any spectrum, however, Fareeha seemed to be absolutely comfortable in it. It only served to make Satya less comfortable.

“I also did much work today,” she admitted carefully, afraid to incriminate herself further.

“Yeah, nice pajamas. What did you want me for, if you were about to go to bed?” Fareeha asked, and her raised eyebrow did nothing to calm Satya’s racing heart.

“Athena told you I wanted to talk to you, wasn’t it?” Satya asked, making sure she understood, thinking back to--oh no. “ _I trusted her_ ,” she muttered under her breath.

Fareeha blinked, shifted in the chair for a moment, and then burst out laughing. Satya looked up sharply, Fareeha wasn’t even looking at her. The taller woman had her hands over her eyes as she threw her head back in laughter, and Satya had difficulty finding fault with her even if the mirth was at her own expense. It was rare for Satya to see anyone express such joy even in mockery.

“You didn’t call for me, did you?” Fareeha confirmed as her laughter subsided. “But you did say _something_ to Athena to make her think that this was in your best interests. Is she setting us up? Did you bad mouth me and she wants us to fight?”

Satya cracked a slim smile, recognizing that from Fareeha’s perspective it likely was pretty funny. She’d learned that people reacted with humour to things that were strange, unexpected, or silly.

Benign surprises made her laugh most of all.

“I believe I have an explanation,” Satya said, carefully tucking her blankets back into place on her bunk and taking a seat atop them. There was only one chair in the dorm, as she had not anticipated ever entertaining guests. “I was looking you up on Athena’s database.”

Fareeha raised an eyebrow. “Most people just talk to each other if they want to get to know someone.”

Satya shrugged, and cast a glare at her terminal in response. “It seems Athena had ideas along the same path. If I had wanted to ask you myself, I believe myself to be capable of doing that of my own volition.”

Fareeha sighed, drawing Satya’s eyes back to her. “Pesky AI always thinking they know what’s best for you, huh?” she said, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as she leaned against her own knees. “What did you want to know? Athena is pretty stingy with information if she thinks you should just talk to someone.”

Satya tilted her head curiously. “You speak as though you have experience in using Athena to investigate someone.”

Fareeha scratched the back of her neck and grinned at Satya in such a way to convey friendly guilt but little else. She cleared her throat and folded her hands loosely in her lap shortly thereafter, perhaps unconsciously mimicking Satya’s own position, before changing the subject.

“You still haven’t told me what you were snooping about, Miss Vaswani,” she said, caught perpetually between a smile and a smirk.

Satya swallowed nervously. She tried to scramble for a lie, but her brain betrayed her by remaining decidedly blank. She’d never been very clever with lies, and this night was no exception. When she did lie, it was often glaringly obvious even to the most foolish of her acquaintances, and Fareeha was no fool.

“I was researching your childhood,” she stated neutrally, careful to ensure that she seemed devoid of emotion. Guilt would get her nowhere. “I stumbled across a picture of you and your mother in Winston’s laboratory, and I grew curious.”

Fareeha leaned forward slightly. “I can see how that might pique your interest,” she said softly. “Vishkar recruited you when you were young, am I wrong? Did you see any parallels?”

“No,” Satya said honestly, bowing her head slightly. Her voice was soft, but the bitter edge to it refused to leave. “Vishkar saved me from a life of poverty and chaos, granting me an education and structure to my life. In return, I provided it with my gifts and worked for the corporation. I did not attend school prior to Vishkar’s intervention in my life, and the story of my life after having left is still unfolding.”

She couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with Fareeha. She felt dirty for having looked up information about the other woman without consent, and dirtier for explaining how dependent she had been upon a corporation that was decidedly on the wrong side of history. Everyone at the base knew of Vishkar and knew of their excessive gentrification efforts. They knew Vishkar to be capable of great wrongs at a glance, while Satya had needed multiple first-hand examples of their crimes to nurture the doubt in her mind.

Her shoulders trembled slightly, though she did not know if the tremors came from sadness or anger.

“I’m sorry to hear that, friend,” Fareeha said gently. “My childhood was by no means typical, but my mother did her best to make it seem so. I loved the weird parts of it more than the boarding schools and online tutoring, to be sure, but my ma wanted nothing more than for me to be a normal kid with a normal life.”

Satya laughed bitterly. “Vishkar encourages the exceptional. The _weird_ as you have it. If they had the resources to school me without any exterior influence whatsoever, I am beginning to think they would have.”

Fareeha cracked a smile, but it did not reach her eyes. “Hey, it’s not too late to go to boarding school, is it?”

“I had hoped that perhaps your life was similar to mine,” Satya admitted, barely acknowledging Fareeha’s interjection. “That we had shared experiences, as you hinted in the truck. I do not know what I expected--that you were tutored by Strike Commander Morrison? That your mother expected you to join Overwatch the minute you came of age to join? Ridiculous.”

Fareeha crossed the room and sat next to Satya on the bed. She did not touch the ex-architech, for which she was grateful, but the presence was enough to put Satya slightly on edge.

“It’s not ridiculous for you to want to have something in common with the people around you,” Fareeha said. Her voice was quiet, but there was an edge to her tone that Satya couldn’t bring herself to identify. “Your childhood isn’t your fault, you must know that.”

Satya ran a knuckle under her eye, catching a tear before it could successfully stain her face, and wiped her hand on her nightgown. She would rather die than make a scene right now, she determined.

“Perhaps,” she acceded. “But it is no one’s fault but my own that I should expect you to have had the same experiences. Am I so desperate to relate to my allies that I go seeking trauma where there is none?” She shook her head and wiped away another tear. She refused to sniffle.

“My life was not without trauma,” Fareeha said, and Satya was uncomfortably aware of how close the larger woman was to her. “I went to more funerals than any other kids my age, I’m sure. I learned more jokes revolving around missing limbs than knock-knock jokes. I wanted nothing more than to help save the world and Ma wouldn’t even allow discussion of it. I spent the first eighteen years of my life frustrated beyond words because I couldn’t help, no matter how badly I wanted to.”

Satya worked up the energy required to actually look at Fareeha, and was flabbergasted by the expression on the other woman’s face. Fareeha’s eyebrows were pinched, but her eyes were soft somehow. She looked more serious than Satya had ever seen her, barring the night they had met. She was taken aback by the expression, and found that she could not put a name to the emotion that the other might be expressing. Compassion? She could only hope.

“I thought I _was_ helping,” Satya said. The bitterness had faded in her voice, but tears were still threatening to spill.

“You are,” Fareeha said simply. “You’re helping now. You don’t need to have had the same childhood with the people around you to have a lot in common with them. We’re all here, aren’t we?” She gestured vaguely to the room, meaning the entire base. “We are ready to risk our lives to protect those who cannot stand for themselves. You abandoned everything to join us, and you’re not the only one.”

Satya sniffled despite her best efforts, and Fareeha moved to be kneeling in front of her so that she could look at Satya’s face. Satya’s eyes widened in surprise, but all Fareeha did was extend her hands. Satya debated internally for a moment before placing her own hands--one flesh and one metal--in Fareeha’s.

“I was a villain,” Satya whispered. With her hands occupied, a tear slipped down her face. She was trembling harder than before, trying to contain every emotion that wanted to burst forth.

“You are not ridiculous,” Fareeha said. Her voice was soft, yet urgent. “You are not a villain. You are far too harsh on yourself, and I will not allow it. You’re on my team, now, and I’m glad for it. Seeking solace in shared experiences is not something to put yourself down for, Satya.”

The speech was accompanied by a gentle squeeze to her hands, and Satya found that her trembling was gradually decreasing in intensity.

“My thanks,” she murmured. She took back possession of her hands and carefully wiped her face, clearing her throat faintly. “This is embarrassing,” she admitted.

Fareeha smiled and shrugged. “Nah. I’ve caught members of my team doing far more embarrassing things than having feelings. The stories I could tell you would make you blush.”

Satya smiled in return, and stood. Fareeha followed her motion. She crossed the room to find tissues, and wiped her face more carefully this time. She was not completely recovered, but was closer now.

“Your team must have trusted you very much, then,” she said with her back still turned to the other woman. “I still wonder why they couldn’t call you by your name, however.”

“Come again?”

“Athena listed your callsign as Pharah,” Satya explained, turning back around. She had a faint smile on her face, and was feeling almost playful in the wake of the sudden and painful emotional outburst. “Was ‘Fareeha’ too difficult for your men to pronounce?”

Fareeha laughed, and Satya couldn’t help but feel delighted that her joke had gone over so well. Often, her attempts at humour were met with derision at worst and blank looks at best.

“In the height of battle, I’m lucky to even get called Pharah. Usually they just seem to scream and hope for the best,” she replied, prompting Satya to laugh as well.

The two stood, then, face to face though a few steps apart in comfortable silence. Satya was struck with the quiet realization that now Fareeha had access to a previously unseen part of herself. Even with Lúcio, she tried to keep an emotional distance. She felt she had no right to burden others with the full weight of her own emotional instability, so she kept things under wraps. She could not recall the last time she cried in front of someone, much less the last time she cried and her tears were met with comfort and compassionate laughter.

“You have my thanks,” she said softly.

“I’m glad to have them, but there is no need. I only did what any friend would do,” Fareeha said. “We’ve both had long days. Catch some shut-eye, it’ll help.”

With that, Fareeha bid Satya farewell, and she was left standing in a suddenly very empty feeling room.

_A friend_ was the surprise that Fareeha had supplied.

The following morning brought even more surprises, to the point that Satya was no longer sure she should continue cataloging them. Newcomers arrived at the base as everyone was taking their breakfast, heralded by Lena zipping through the room and talking so quickly that not even Lúcio could make heads or tails of her words.

Satya followed the group down the stairs to find out what had caused such gibberish to pour from Lena’s mouth, and was less startled than perhaps she ought to have been to see a duo of omnics. One of which was floating, while the other seemed to be entirely naked. She told herself that this should really be more surprising, but alas, she seemed to be taking it rather in stride. The hyper-intelligent moon gorilla had really put things in perspective for her lately.

Speaking of which, it was Winston who bounded forward and grasped the naked omnic’s hand in his own.

“Genji! Just like old times!” The jubilance in Winston’s voice was almost enough to make Satya smile.

“Winston, my friend! It seems our paths cross once again,” the omnic said, moving forward to shake his old ally’s hand.

Lúcio, not one to miss out on a reunion, hopped up and skated down the wall so that he could get out in front of everybody else waiting on the stairs. He moved smoothly toward the trio and flung his arms around both Genji (apparently) and Winston.

“You made it! Winston said you wouldn’t wanna come because you’re tight with the ultra-peaceful Shambali but I just had to give it a shot!” Lúcio said, skating in circles around the two omnics.

Genji threw his head back and laughed, gesturing to his floating companion. “Peace is preferable to violence, but action is preferable to inaction, isn’t that right master?”

“Master?” Lúcio repeated, his jaw dropping. “You must be Tekhartha Zenyatta!”

Lena whipped forward, vaulting over Winston to fly into a hug with Genji and whirled around to look at Zenyatta in something less than a second.

“I’ve always wanted to meet a member of the Shambali!” she said, grasping his hands. “It’s a real honor! Mondatta was an inspiration! Did you know him personally?”

The floating omnic chuckled easily, and took her hands and her energy with grace. “Mondatta was a brother to me, and an inspiration to us all. I miss him greatly.”

There was a moment of silence as Lena contemplated her conversational stumbling block, quickly interrupted by Winston’s exuberance to have a familiar face on the team once more. Untested new recruits only provided so much in the way of comfort for the gorilla, after all.

“I really am shocked to have you back, Genji,” he said. “Are you ready to fight the good fight again?”

“I am. Talon’s heartless attack on my master’s brother struck a chord with both of us, and we will not falter in stopping them.”

“Not so much of a chord that you felt the need to put on trousers, evidently,” Fareeha called out, and made her way into the fray.

“Is that…? Little Fareeha?” Genji asked, visibly taken aback. Satya was interested to note how much emotion the omnic seemed capable of displaying, particularly given that the wear and tear on his chassis indicated that he was not a particularly current model.

“Big Fareeha now,” she corrected, and immediately swung an arm around his shoulders and gave him a noogie. “Where’s all your clothes? There are ladies looking, you cyborg ninja fucker!”

Genji laughed and detangled himself from her grasp. “That’s my name! Green cyborg ninja dude, at your service! I see new faces, and some old. Reinhardt, you old bear! How are you not dead yet?”

“I am too beautiful for death to claim me yet, my friend!” Reinhardt roared.

“I know the problem well, you old lion!”

And with that, introductions and reunions merged. Satya was taken aback at the mention of the omnic actually being a cyborg, and chided herself on judging a book by its cover--or, rather, a cyborg by his chassis. Through Reinhardt’s roars of laughter and Lena’s animated conversation, it was easy for her to slip away to get some work done.

If she wanted to meet the newest members, she would do it on her own terms separately from everyone else. She had never been one for crowds, and she did not wish to meet a member of the Shambali and a cyborg who undoubtedly had stories to tell in the midst of an overwhelmed panic response.

Only one hour later, as she sat on a chair of her own creation, unspooling beams of light from her palm to assist in the repairs of the sentry system, one of the newcomers paid her a visit. It was not the one she had expected, as she could still hear Lena’s chortles in response to something Genji had said a few rooms over.

“Hello,” the omnic greeted her simply.

She afforded him a glance, but nothing else. She wanted to create something that could identify friend from foe before disabling whatever shields they might have in play, and this required her focus. The omnic--Tekhartha, was it?--did not distract her. If she could not hear the quiet sounds of mechanized motion, she would have assumed that he’d left.

When the turret was finished, she looked back over.

“What do you need?” she asked. Her voice was sharper than she intended, but she was feeling defensive and awkward and she couldn’t help it.

“An introduction. A conversation, perhaps. Nothing more,” the omnic replied. “What is your name?”

“Satya Vaswani,” she replied automatically. “You are Tekhartha Zenyatta, I heard. The Shambali do not typically send members from their ranks to join international organizations.”

“You may call me Zenyatta,” the omnic said with a friendly chuckle. “Tekhartha is my brother.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Zenyatta, then.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Vaswani,” he replied. “You are right about the Shambali, as it happens. My methods run contrary to their proposed plan to stop violence against our omnic siblings, as it turns out. I believe that distance does not always make the heart grow fonder.”

“Joining an illegal organization of uniquely powerful individuals makes the heart grow stronger, then?” she fired back, tilting her head to the side.

The omnic did not visibly react, but she was not sure what reaction she could have expected from an omnic.

“Perhaps it will,” he said, and somehow she got the impression that he was smiling. “What about you, Miss Vaswani? What brings you to this illegal organization of uniquely powered individuals?”

She turned back to her sentry turret, cradling it in her hands. If she attached it to Athena’s power grid, it should survive until it took some kind of damage. She hoped that no birds dropped rocks on it, for its existence would be tenuous at best under duress.

A soft smile graced her face.

“I am here to save the world,” she said gently.

“Ahh, the world!” Zenyatta agreed. “What a beautiful thing to save.”

Satya laughed lightly. “It is as yet an unrealized dream, to me,” she admitted. “There is so much hurt in the world. Chaos and disorder reign over the masses of confused and helpless...but we can do something beautiful. The world has such potential, don’t you think?”

The monk nodded sagely, and she appreciated the gesture.

“There is beauty in chaos too, I think.” The argument surprised her. An omnic, she had been certain, would understand her point of view. “Life is a disorderly thing, Miss Vaswani, but it is alarmingly beautiful. Even in disorder, after all, there is balance.”

There was some truth to his words, she was sure, but she wasn’t ready to hear them. “Disorder only brings pain,” she said sharply. “Your brother was killed; do you not know this for yourself?”

Zenyatta bowed his head, and she knew she had said something insensitive. Thoughtless. She stiffened as she readied herself for his anger or his disappointment.

“You are not wrong,” he said, and she could not determine what emotions his voice might hold. “Disorder can hurt many people. I believe it provides opportunity, as well.”

_An opportunity for ruffians to steal and loot, perhaps_ , she thought. She had the good grace not to say these words, however, and considered it an improvement.

“I should like to take the opportunity it provides to shape a better world,” she replied.

“Ahh, a better world indeed. Speaking of which, I believe I have been dishonest in my goals for this conversation. I have an ulterior motive, you see.”

“Oh?” She was glad for a change in subject. She did not wish to alienate herself or the newcomer anymore than she already had.

“Winston and Lúcio are having a meeting, and they wished me to bring this to your attention.” Zenyatta held up a hand before panic could set in. “They also wished for the two of us to take our time, so you needn’t worry about arriving late. Follow me, if you will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait on this one! I really wanted to make sure chapter 6 was all done before I posted this, and it was a little harder than usual for me to get through it. I hope you like this chapter!! Your comments are so, so, _so_ appreciated, everyone! They're what keep me writing!


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